Saturday, May 11, 2013

Election Day here in San Antonio. It's been a long time since we've had an opportunity to vote -- a full six months.

In my part of town only two items on the ballot -- mayor, where Julian Casto is going to be easily re-elected against a handful of obscure candidates, and an open city counsel seat. That's been a fascinating race: the two major candidates (there's also an obscure one) have been spending lots of money and throwing a lot of mud. Fun! What's really been interesting, however, is that the local newspaper has had a major vendetta against one of them -- must have been a dozen stories about his misdeeds, including several front-pagers. It's really not clear what's going on. Perhaps the guy just really is that ethically awful; perhaps there's something else. Whatever it is, I haven't seen the newspaper crusade like this in any contest in the twelve years I've lived here. Given that turnout for these elections is tiny (under 10%), I suppose that the small minority of dedicated voters probably overlaps quite a bit with newspaper readers, so maybe that matters; the guy the newspaper is attacking has spent more money, and got a late endorsement from the incumbent. Me? I'm voting for the other guy, partially because of endorsements, partially because he seemed nice the time I met him when he was campaigning in the school parking lot on a previous election day and the two (!) times he rang our doorbell, partially because he runs the local fantastic jazz radio station (seriously, if you're looking, you won't do better), and mostly because my wife, who generally makes our decisions on local politics, supports him. So two choices, both for offices that everyone voting understands. That's nice! On the other hand, it's a non-partisan ballot, so you have to look for clues about the candidates...apparently, both of the counsel candidates support sensible growth and are against traffic. The band, I hope.

At any rate: this was the first election here of the year, of the two-year cycle, and of the four-year cycle. Two marks on the computer screen and that's it.

For dedicated readers of these reports, the best news is that the local elementary school is no longer touting it's slogan: "Ubiquitous!"